Are libertarians inherently thick?

“It seems that we have gotten way off topic and neither of us are actually arguing against each other.”

“it would be…impossible to sustain argumentation for any length of time and rely on the prepositional force of one’s arguments, if one were not allowed to appropriate next to one’s body other scarce means though homesteading action, i.e., by putting them to use before someone else does, and if such means, and the rights of exclusive control regarding them, were not defined in objective, physical terms. For if no one had the right to control anything at all except his own body, then we would all cease to exist and the problem of justifying norms-as well as all other human problems-simply would not exist. Thus, by virtue of the fact of being alive, then, property rights to other things must be presupposed to be valid too. No one who is alive could argue otherwise. And if a person did not acquire the right of exclusive control over such goods by homesteading action, i.e., by establishing some objective link between a particular person and a particular scarce resource before anybody else had done so, but if instead, late-comers were assumed to have ownership claims to things, then literally no one would be allowed to do anything with anything as one would have to have all of the later-comer’s consent prior to ever doing what one wanted to do. Neither we, our forefathers, nor our progeny could, do or will survive if one were to follow this rule.” 11 ~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, EEPP, 206

Your consequentialist ethic in “action”.

To go back to the OP though - Libertarians are inherently thin.

Grundnorms.

“The libertarian seeks property assignment rules because he values or accepts various grundnorms such as justice, peace, prosperity, cooperation, conflict-avoidance, and civilization.[14] The libertarian view is that self-ownership is the only property assignment rule compatible with these grundorms; it is implied by them.”

[14] “Grundnorm” was legal philosopher Hans Kelsen’s term for the hypothetical basic norm or rule that serves as the basis or ultimate source for the legitimacy of a legal system. See Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Law and State, trans. Anders Wedberg (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1949). I employ this term to refer to the fundamental norms presupposed by civilized people, e.g., in argumentative discourse, which in turn imply libertarian norms.

That the libertarian grundnorms are, in fact, necessarily presupposed by all civilized people to the extent they are civilized — during argumentative justification, that is — is shown by Hoppe in his argumentation-ethics defense of libertarian rights. On this, see Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism, chapter 7; Stephan Kinsella, “New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory,” Journal of Libertarian Studies 12, no. 2 (Fall 1996): 313–26; idem, “Defending Argumentation Ethics,” Anti-state.com (Sept. 19, 2002).

For discussion of why people (to one extent or the other) do value these underlying norms, see Stephan Kinsella, “The Division of Labor as the Source of Grundnorms and Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (April 24, 2009), and idem, “Empathy and the Source of Rights,” Mises Economics Blog (Sept. 6, 2006). See also idem, “Punishment and Proportionality,” pp. 51 and 70:

People who are civilized are … concerned about justifying punishment. They want to punish, but they also want to know that such punishment is justified — they want to legitimately be able to punish … Theories of punishment are concerned with justifying punishment, with offering decent men who are reluctant to act immorally a reason why they may punish others. This is useful, of course, for offering moral men guidance and assurance that they may properly deal with those who seek to harm them.

In a language that forces you to constantly note time and tense, you would think about such things more…but that’s true by definition. If I create a new language that forces you to end every sentence with an expression about how comfortable your feet are at that moment, on a scale of 1 to 100, by jove you will get really good at scoring things on a strict 1-to-100 scale and you will be probably become keenly aware of your bodily sensations in all their different degrees.

I am willing to grant that language can and does have a significant influence on how people think, like any other thought process you are forced to engage in to communicate with people on a daily basis. But that is a far cry from it being integral to thought. I would bet money that every single one of those “generalized categories” that supposedly are only accessible through words, are just incoherent concepts that really are just words with no set meaning behind them (like “justice”). That’s to be shown. Temporal categories, for example, are accessible by anyone who has the ability to visualize a movie, which I think includes young children.

(As an aside, the bilingual speakers thing just doesn’t work out like it might appear. Unless every single one of each of the test participant’s friends and family spoke both English and Indonesian in all situations, there would be no way to remove the cultural factor. Both being learned in the same culture only covers some base factors. Even from within the same culture, do they study math in both, watch movies in both, adore and mimick Hannah Montana in both, get angry in both, make love in both, get drunk in both, talk to themselves in both? Surely such individuals exist, but they are extremely rare.) And when you get into Hannah Montana you might start to see the fundamental problem. There is an entirely different set of associations betwen the languages, no matter how similar and equal one tries to make use of them.

Would you mind defining consequentialist libertarian for me? The excert you have provided has nothing to do with consequentialist libertarianism as I understand the word to be defined so the most likely candidate for confusion here is that we mean different things when we talk about this subject.

I disagree. I think we can see just by looking back through this thread and some other related ones on this forum that some people believe in libertarianism as an ethical code which they follow even when the society isn’t libertarian while others beleive in libertarianism as a political philosophy but don’t follow the ethical code in their day to day lives.

“Would you mind defining consequentialist libertarian for me?”

We’ve already been over this, in this exact thread. Hoppe is using the exact same definition as you supplied earlier. He also takes apart those individuals listed as consequentialist’s in the bottom of the link you provided and in this thread alone - two have been specifically stated. I will now repost from earlier:

“As regards the utilitarian position, the proof contains its ultimate refutation. It demonstrates that simply in order to propose the utilitarian position, exclusive rights of control over one’s body and one’s homesteaded goods already must be presupposed as valid. More specifically, as regards the consequentialist aspect of libertarianism, the proof shows its praxeological impossibility: the assignment of rights of exclusive control cannot be dependent on certain outcomes. One could never act and propose anything unless private property rights existed prior to a later outcome. A consequentialist ethic is a praxeological absurdity. Any ethic must instead be “aprioristic” or instantaneous in order to make it possible that one can act here and now and propose this or that rather than having to suspend acting until later. Nobody advocating a wait-for-the-outcome ethic would be around to say anything if he took his own advice seriously. Also, to the extent that utilitarian proponents are still around, they demonstrate through their actions that their consequentialist doctrine is and must be regarded as false. Acting and proposition-making require private property rights now and cannot wait for them to be assigned only later.” - HHH, Economics and ethics of private property, p354

By the looks of it, you’re a smart guy. I really don’t understand what is being misunderstood. If you want to proclaim the benefits of the market, take that persons position on it’s own terms and explain what would happen if it went into effect in a value free manner etc. that is what Austrian Economics is for! By all means, remain value free. Libertarianism however is a political philosophy. It also is value free. It is meta-normative it does not deal with ‘oughts’ or ‘shoulds’, but ‘rights’. Argumentation ethics is one justification which avoids the is/ought gap. I’d suggest you read What Libertarianism Is - as to how it differs from others. Because a consequentialist ethic really is an absurdity.

Maybe this will help?

"Since considerations such as these are irrelevant in order to judge the validity of a mathematical proof, for instance, so are they beside the point here. In the same way as the validity of a mathematical proof is not restricted to the moment of proving it, so is the validity of the libertarian property theory not limited to instances of argumentation. If correct, the argument demonstrates its universal justification. (Of all utilitarian critics only Steele takes up the challenge that I had posed for them: that the assignment of property rights cannot be dependent on any later outcome because in this case no one could ever know before the outcome what he was or was not justified to do; and that in advocating a consequentialist position utilitarianism is [strictly speaking] no ethic at all if it fails to answer the all decisive question “what am I justified to do now?” Steele solves this problem in the same way as he proceeds throughout his comment: by misunderstanding what it is.

He misconceives my argument as subject to empirical testing and misrepresents it as claiming to show that “I favor a libertarian ethic” follows from “I am saying something,” while in fact it claims that entirely independent of whatever people happen to favor or utter “the libertarian ethic can be given an ultimate propositional justification” follows from “I claim such and such to be valid, i.e., capable of propositional justification.” His response to the consequentialist problem is yet another stroke of genius: No, says Steele, consequentialism must not involve a praxeologically absurd waiting-for-the-outcome ethic. His example: Certain rules are advocated first, then implemented, and later adjusted depending on outcomes. While this is indeed an example of consequentialism, I fail to see how it should provide an answer to “what are we justified in doing now?” and so escape the absurdities of a waiting- for-the-outcome ethic.

The starting point is unjustified [Which rules? Not only the outcome depends on this!]; and the consequentialist procedure is unjustified, too. [Why not adopt rules and stick to them regardless of the outcome?] Steele’s answer to the question “what am I justified in doing?” is “that depends on whatever rules you start out with, then on the outcome of whatever this leads to, and finally on whether or not you care about such an outcome.” Whatever this is, it is no ethic.) pg 406-407 - Hoppe, EEPP

“I disagree. I think we can see just by looking back through this thread and some other related ones on this forum that some people believe in libertarianism as an ethical code which they follow even when the society isn’t libertarian while others beleive in libertarianism as a political philosophy but don’t follow the ethical code in their day to day lives.”

And those people fail to realise the distinction between political philosophy & personal ethics. So if you support the idea of socialism, but you work in the free market - you’re not really a socialist. If you support the idea of statism, but you work in the free market - you’re not really a statist. If you support the idea of libertarianism, but you work in government - you’re really not a libertarian? Riiighhhht, epic reasoning there.

“The truth is inherently practical, and in recognizing an idea as true (or false), a scholar cannot but want it to be implemented (or eradicated) immediately. For this reason, in addition to pursuing his scholarly ambitions, Menger served as personal tutor to the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf, and as an appointed life-member of the Austrian House of Lords (Herrenhaus). Similarly, Böhm-Bawerk served three times as Austrian minister of finance, and was a lifetime member of the Herrenhaus. Likewise, Mises was the nationally prominent chief economist of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and advisor to many prominent figures during Austria’s first Republic, and later, in the U.S., he served as advisor to the National Association of Manufacturers and numerous other organizations. Only Mises went even further. Just as he was the first economic system-builder, so was he the first to give the Austrian activism systematic expression by associating Austrian economics with radical-liberal-libertarian-political reform (as laid out in his Liberalism of 1927). Only Rothbard, who likewise served in many advisory functions and as founder and academic director of several educational organizations, accomplished something comparable.” - MNR: Economics Science, and Liberty by Hoppe

The reason I think we are running into word definition issues is because you are using statements like “consequentialist ethic” but I don’t see consequentialism as being an ethic at all. It is simply a shorthand way of stating that I believe my net utility would be higher in a libertarian society than it would be in a statist society. I am making no ethical claims, simply stating a personal belief about my own predicted future utility given two hypothetical options (libertarianism and statism).

This statement can not, therefore, be invalid or an “absudity” because it is simply me making a prediction on future utility and acting toward it (being a proponent of libertarianism). Deontological libertarianism on the other hand (as I define it) describes people who don’t look at libertarianism as a predicted net utility gain but rather look at it as morally right. They believe in private property rights being a natural law and extend that into believing libertarianism is the only political system which allows that law to go unbroken (or at least minimizes it’s breaking).

Again, these are my definitions and I have run into people on this forum who do not share these definitions so I have no problem not using them. Hoppe’s argument that “consequentialist libertarianism is an absurdity” does not apply though if you insert my definition into the statement because you can not call someone’s prediction on future value a “praxeological absurdity”.

I don’t disagree here, I tried to argue this point in another thread and it didn’t really go anywhere. I was arguing for libertarianism as a political philosophy and not an ethical philosophy while others were arguing that if one didn’t ethically follow libertarianism while living in a statist society then they were not a real libertarian.

He’s new and doesn’t know me. You should know better.

Conza, I rarely reply to your posts. I rarely reply because they are hard to read (sourcing authority is not a discussion), don’t usually address the issue to my level of interest and your quoting style is incredibly difficult to read. It’s not just these posts, I skip over nearly all of your posts. That doesn’t justify you acting like a hurt child when you feel you’re being ignored. I’ve given you a lot of my time on instant messenger, obviously ignoring you is not my usual mode of operation.

Again, I didn’t read it. When I read your first response to my third post (after the new guy pointed it out), I thought “Cool, Hoppe makes my point, but I don’t think Conza gets it” of course at this point, I had little inclination to discuss with you at all.

Looks like you are talking to someone else. Am I supposed to reply to every post you make?

That’s an argument from ignorance. I have already explained to you why I don’t reply to all of your posts. They are hard to read and you more often than not make my point accidentally. If you’re feeling marginalized, maybe the lowest common denominator is you, not everyone else.

Your pursuit of the truth completely misses the point about communication between humans. Your issue (and it was once mine) is that because you think you’re right, you think that’s good enough. It isn’t. You can shout until you are blue in the face, but if you can’t convince people to listen, then it is all for naught except to build a suspicious mind. Come down off your high horse, and sit among the rest of us. Learn to speak clearly and directly to individuals. Respect prior relationships and try to understand the other party’s point of view.

If you wanna have a debate about my ethics vs yours, I’ll do it. but you’re going to be sad about how it turns out because at this time, you’re unable to separate your sense of righteousness from your desire to communicate, and if this didn’t do it, that will probably cost you a friend.

Have a nice day.

Sorry Conza, I stopped following this post after I wrote that.

Now that you mention it I’m not really in favor of taking money from the government. That sounds easier said then done, I live in Canada and all my education “was free” up till now. Sorry for not replying earlier.